A Better Man
by Shekiah Rosay
Summary: Carlisle finds out what Esme suffered at the hands of her ex-husband Charles Evenson and sets out to avenge her - by means of a violent murder.
1. Chapter 1

Something SERIOUS from Shekiah?! For real?!

This is kind of along the same lines as 'Out of the Darkness.' However that was a character study of Rosalie, the victim. Instead of following that pattern and basing this on Esme's feelings, it becomes a character study of Carlisle, the listener. And I believe it is more interesting as a result. ;) I don't own the universe of Twilight. The title comes from the song "Better Man" by Pearl Jam. Rated for mature themes and Carlisle's language when he gets angry.

Enjoy, dear reader.

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**_CARLISLE'S POV_**

* * *

I had never voluntarily wanted to kill another man until I heard his story.

That bastard Charles Evenson.

I didn't kill him, though, I suppose I'm proud to say. Not that I didn't _want_ to; it was just that I couldn't. There was one time I even tried. Well, I didn't get so far as to _try,_ in the physical sense of the word, or he never would have seen the light of day again. My rage brought me as far as the sitting room of his impeccably-decorated Midwestern home, but I never brought myself to sink my teeth into his fragile, revolting human flesh. It was a narrow miss, though.

I imagine that son of a bitch owes his life to my vampirically-heightened level of compassion…

I should probably record the story, mostly for posterity's sake.

* * *

It was about three years after Esme left him that she finally shared her story. Two of those years, give or take a little, had been spent with me. Having had no idea at the time about the life she had spent prior to her change into a vampire, I didn't know how much time had passed or what had occurred therein.

Something traumatic had happened to her; that much I had known. Even more traumatic than losing a baby – evidently it was possible. Edward had caved and admitted that much to me, but being the Edward I know and love, he was far too noble to betray any more of her secrets. I would have asked Esme herself, but I knew even without the details that it would have been wrong for me to push her to admit things that she didn't want to. I try hard not to betray other people's trust, especially trust as true and earnest as Esme's.

I'll be honest – I'm a doctor. I knew that she had attempted suicide simply by the nature of her injuries, and there are few suicides without provocation either by another person or by circumstance. Esme isn't the suicidal type, either. Something terrible had to have happened.

But all of that will be explained later on in the story. Let's go back to the day when she told me everything. It had been a stressful one, as many of them were back then. Esme was just beginning to leave the newborn phase of obsession with hunger, and I could tell that she was having trouble with some new and different stressors.

Memories.

For many young vampires, recollections are very cloudy and difficult in the beginning, before the distinction is established between the human and vampiric phases of life. Though this takes different amounts of time for different vampires, the general effect is the same. Old memories – human memories – are very cloudy and difficult to make out. However, with time, they begin to come back. For many of us, it is a relief. The memories of friends and family we've all had to leave behind for the common good return mercifully. But for others – especially Esme – there were old skeletons in the closet that began to come forward as things became clearer.

We had been talking about my day at the hospital, as usual. Esme was – and still is – a sweetheart of a nineteen-twenties housewife, always wanting to hear how my day went. General dinner-table conversation – except without the dinner part.

I had actually had a hard time at the hospital that day, and was relieved to be able to vent a little bit to a listener as sympathetic as Esme. One patient in particular had been very upsetting to treat. She was a young woman in her mid-twenties. The malady for which she came in was a cut on her hand from chopping vegetables. Typical injury – the knife had slipped and cut her thumb. Hands bleed a lot, so it looked worse than it was; a few stitches had it under control quite nicely.

However, the cut hadn't been the largest of her problems.

As she was checked into the emergency room, I explained, I had noticed large purple bruises circling her upper arms. They looked fresh, and I could almost make out five individual finger marks on each side. From this alone, I had her pegged as a domestic abuse victim, but she hadn't come in for the bruises, so there was almost nothing I was legally allowed to do…

When I looked up, Esme was crying.

It was difficult to tell when vampires cried, since there weren't any real tears involved, but I had learned very well how to identify a breakdown.

And this definitely was just that.

Esme's shoulders shook, and her mouth made a firm line. Her eyes were closed tightly. The tears were dry and silent, but I knew they were there.

"Esme, darling!" I had exclaimed, kneeling down beside her chair. "What's wrong?"

"Don't you see, Carlisle?" she asked me, her eyes almost impossible to look into for all the pain they held. "That woman you treated at the hospital today – she was me. As I was before you found me. Don't you understand?"

I must confess; it took a second for everything to sink in.

"Esme," I whispered, my eyes widening with horror as I took her trembling hand. "I never knew."

Though she had told me the story about losing her baby, for some reason I never felt the need to ask about the human father I knew had to have existed. Maybe it was just because I was her husband now and subconsciously feared the idea of another man in her life, or maybe just because I had gotten so much in the habit of respecting my family's privacy. Who can tell?

But now the truth had finally surfaced, and it all made sense.

Her husband, whoever he had been, was abusive. Pregnancy was the excuse to leave that she had been waiting for, and the baby was all she had left to live for after she ran away. When that was gone, well, there was nothing left.

Thousands of ideas raced through my head in that moment. There were the logical ones, like those listed above, and the ones that were fully emotion, and fully rage.

The idea that anyone could lay a hand on someone as kind and inherently good as Esme made me physically ill. Her smile, her eyes – being able to hit someone with such a lovely soul, someone whom I loved so, so much – should have been impossible.

What kind of sick, horrible person would be able to do something like that?

And, moreover, how could his heart still undoubtedly beat while my Esme's did not?

There was nothing more I could have said in my state at that point, so I was thankful to Esme for continuing. As calmly as I could, I moved back to the chair where I had been sitting and scooted it closer so that I could hold her.

"His name was Charles Evenson," she began. "He was admired in the community, and a good man. So I was told. His family was wealthy and he owned lots of property in the city…"

I knew those kinds of stories backwards and forwards. Imagining Esme forced into a marriage of convenience with a man she didn't love made my skin crawl. The fact that he later abused her made me wish I was human simply so that I could become as violently ill as I wanted. I felt my free hand tighten around the seat of my chair. The wood was splintering, but right now it was the closest thing I had to Evenson's throat.

"An Evenson?" I had managed to whisper. I had lived in Columbus long enough to know plenty about that family. They were the embodiment of what every good American wanted to become – as close to royalty as you could find in Columbus, Ohio.

Esme nodded, calming down enough to smile bitterly.

"Obadiah Evenson's grandson. Can you believe that?"

I shook my head. Obadiah Evenson had commissioned the hospital where I worked in Ohio. I couldn't imagine any of his relations being like Esme described Charles. I didn't _want_ to imagine it.

"At the age of twenty-two, I was the last of my friends to marry. A few more years and I would have been an old maid," Esme explained. "Funny, isn't it, how things have changed?"

I couldn't imagine any part of this story being funny, but I let her continue.

"Charles had been financed once before, but the engagement had inexplicably ended. Knowing that fact disconcerted me a little bit, I must admit. I comforted myself with the idea that people don't always get along; these things happen. My fears were eased as courted me quite loyally and finally asked me for my hand in marriage. Having given up on finding the doctor from my sixteen-year-old daydreams – " Here she paused and gave me a shy smile – "I accepted."

Even though I knew that her days with Charles had long since passed, hearing those two words was like a death sentence. But she continued, seemingly unaffected.

"The first month was beautiful, really. A lavish honeymoon, exclusive parties – being an Evenson was a bigger deal than I had realized. The fact remained that there wasn't love in our relationship, but strangely enough, sometimes the absence things like love are simpler to overlook than you might think."

Esme's eyes grew darker as she went on.

"One day, he came home from work, and dinner wasn't ready yet. I had been next door helping our neighbor, the wife of one of Charles's co-workers, clean house. She was about eight months pregnant at the time, and I recall being terribly jealous. But when Charles arrived that day, things were different. He was very angry that the food wasn't ready, and it all went by so quickly. I remember being horrified as he knocked a pot of soup off the stove… the next minute, I was on the floor too. Carlisle, I'm sorry – do you want me to stop?"

The tenderness in Esme's eyes only made my chest seize up even further. She had noticed the raggedness in my breathing, even if I hadn't. Reaching out a trembling hand, I traced her soft cheek.

"No, Esme. If you can go on, you should. I need to… understand."

"There's not much more to tell. Things went on like that for a few months. The outbursts came more and more regularly, and got more and more violent. I tried to tell my parents, but I don't think they believed me. They just thought I was bitter about the fact that our marriage had not yet resulted in a pregnancy. I even remember my mother advising me to take vitamins. Finally, things took a turn for the better. Charles left to fight in the Great War."

Esme chuckled a little as she went on.

"I waved goodbye and pretended to cry into my handkerchief with all the other little housewives, but inside, I was rejoicing. I had two years to myself, other women consoling me and cooking for me. Those were actually fairly nice years. I got lonely occasionally, but it wasn't like I hadn't been just as lonely when Charles was on the other side of my bed. The idea actually occurred to me that Charles might not come home when one of my close friends received a letter that her husband had been killed in the trenches. I remember distinctly wishing that I could trade her _my_ huband's life, but my wish was to no avail – Charles returned the following year."

I could feel Esme tense up, and I put my arm around her shoulders.

"Things picked up right where they left off, but with one twist: a month after his return, I became pregnant."

She smiled at the memory.

"I was excited, at first – motherhood had always been my dream. But then reality set back in, and I was horrified. There was no possibility of brining a baby into my broken home. My only choice was to leave. I confided my problems to a cousin of mine, who helped me pay for an apartment and find a job as a seamstress. Things were working out, until I lost the baby – and my sanity along with it. I suppose that's where you came in."

"My darling Esme," I sighed softly, "I wish I had known sooner…"

What I had really meant was that I wish I had somehow known what was taking place during those dark years, and I had been able to knock on Charles Evenson's door, break his neck, and take his suffering wife to a safe place where she would be loved. I _existed_ during those years, living out a peaceful life as a practitioner in Chicago, then Ashland. It would have been so simple, if there had been any way of knowing.

_To make it even more frustrating, I had been lonely, too!_

"You found out at the right time," she said softly, answering my unvoiced questions as perfectly as Edward tended to. "Things are better now. I've moved on, so there's no need for you to dwell in the past either."

Dwell in the past. There was no past for me. No future. Just an eternal present, sometimes more painful than others.

_No past._

In that moment, something struck me – painfully and deeply. _Charle's heart _did_ still beat._ Somewhere out there, he was living and breathing and maybe ruining some other woman's life. But that wouldn't even _have_ to be true – he had already earned death at a vampire's hands ten times over. Death at _my_ hands. For the first time, I could drink human blood and enjoy it, knowing that by killing I was doing the world a favor. I suppressed the dark smile that crept to my lips.

"I suppose," I said stiffly instead.

"Carlisle, it's okay now," Esme whispered, running a hand through my hair. "You're so much more than I ever dreamed of. That's enough for me. The past is the past. It was another lifetime – literally."

I nodded as she kissed me softly, but vowed internally that Charles's peaceful life was about to come to an end –and a quite agonizing end at that.

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This is written to be a trilogy - if you want chapters two and three, I need feedback! :)


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, you guys really came through – thanks so much for all the feedback! :D In my gratitude, I updated a day earlier than planned. Here's the second installment!

* * *

Though I hadn't admitted it to myself, I hadn't expected Charles Evenson to be a human being. Or anything closely resembling one. It sounds stupid, and I didn't realize it myself until I saw him standing in the doorway of his home.

I had traveled to Columbus anticipating a meeting with some grotesque monster or demon, but the man standing in the doorway was quite obviously just that – a man. He was just a bit shorter than me, with short, graying brown hair. His nose was slightly pointed and his face a bit paler than that of most humans. He wore a black suit, with a striped tie and slightly scuffed black shoes. All these traits and imperfections combined to make him appear as human as could be.

This realization did not make me rethink my plans for his demise for a moment, though it probably should have. If anything, it made me hate him even more.

"Good evening, Charles Evenson," I said stiffly, giving the austere man a smile that was really more of a grimace. Hopefully he wouldn't notice. "My name is Dr. Carlisle Cullen."

Evenson raised an eyebrow as he shook my hand, obviously surprised at how cold it was. The bitter realization occurred to me that the hand I now shook had stricken Esme, not so long ago. Trying to calm myself, I tightened my grip. Hearing his hand pop, I begrudgingly let up. It wasn't broken, but it would definitely bruise. Not that I wouldn't have gladly broken Evenson's hand, but he probably would have slammed the door in my face, and I didn't want to have to break it down and alarm the neighbors.

"What are you doing here?" he asked coldly, trying to flex his hand where I couldn't see his discomfort.

"I was hoping to have a word with you," I explained, wondering all the while how my voice remained so even and even benevolent. "I work at your grandfather's hospital – I'm new to the area."

"I see," Evenson replied. He still sounding a bit frustrated, probably due to his throbbing hand, but he knew he had an image to uphold. "Do come in. I enjoy making the acquaintance of newcomers to this community – particularly those of your social standing, Doctor."

As I followed him into the beautifully-furnished house, I immediately recognized Esme's decorating style. Intricately-woven carpets were matched to simple, elegant drapes that framed the windows effortlessly. The sun would have looked lovely coming in through the gauzy fabric, but I had carefully planned my visit for rainy day. Evenson couldn't think me any more than a concerned young doctor – that is, until the time for his demise arrived.

"Your house is beautifully decorated, Mr. Evenson," I commented, prepared to make my first inflammatory stab. "Your wife's doing?"

Charles's next comment only caused my rage to flare further – as though it needed it.

"Interior decorator, actually," he replied, lying effortlessly. "I'm a bachelor, I must confess."

"I see," I replied, again amazing myself with my ability to keep my rage perfectly in check. Charles turned left at the end of the corridor, leading me into a beautifully-furnished sitting room that looked out over the courtyard behind the house. Morning glories – Esme's favorite – wound around the pickets of a white fence surrounding what I assumed must be a vegetable garden. Esme didn't grow those in our garden back home, but then again, there really wasn't any reason to…

"Take a seat, please," Charles insisted, interrupting my thoughts. "Brandy?"

"No, thank you," I replied. "I'm not a drinking man."

That was true, I supposed; not only am I not a drinking man, I'm not an eating man, either. However, Charles seemed to take this remark as a personal affront, from the way he tensed. I watched him top off the glass that he had been pouring with an extra half-inch that most men probably would have denied themselves.

The silence that ensued following this altercation would have been disconcerting, had I really been there on a social call. As matters actually stood, Charles's awkwardness only vindicated me. I could feel a fire raging behind my fragile, carefully-maintained façade of calm indifference. The scene was set for the perfect murder. Before I rushed into things rashly, though, it would probably be a good idea to look around and take in the rest of the room to ensure that I had accounted for all possibilities of evidence I could leave. It wasn't as though the authorities had any hope of holding me, but I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I led them back to my family.

Every inch of the house cried out 'Esme.' I could see the hours she had spent beautifying this space, and could only imagine the grief and lack of appreciation she had received in return. The walls told me the story of my wife's spirit being steadily broken inside their confines. And the perpetrator of this crime, this most vile of crimes, was sitting calmly in a chair across from me, drinking brandy.

"Not married…" I repeated thoughtfully, a plan forming in my mind. "That's quite a surprise, for a man of your stature."

There was a pause, before Charles turned to me and raised an eyebrow.

"Quite impertinent, aren't you, Dr. Cullen?" he inquired. I suppose he had to invite me into his home, but he didn't necessarily have to be civil. I gave him my best apologetic smile.

"You have to understand, I'm a newly married man myself. These matters are of the greatest interest to me."

"I see," Charles gave me what looked vaguely like a smile for the first time since I had arrived. "I trust your marriage is a happy one?"

"The happiest," I replied. "It was a small ceremony, planned by my new wife, Esme."

I heard his heart rate speed up – I didn't require my son's abilities to know that he was remembering what he had done, and the memory was not one he found comforting.

"Lovely name," he said quickly, coughing discreetly into his sleeve.

"Quite lovely," I agreed, acting entirely oblivious to his nervous breakdown. "Esme is a lovely girl. She has a very sad past, though."

The effect was instant. I could see beads of sweat forming on Charles's forehead, which was steadily becoming paler. Stupid human – there was practically no chance, according to common logic, that my Esme and his could be one and the same. At least, that is, according to the measly amount of information I'd given him so far. He could start panicking when I got to the part of the story where he came in.

"Do tell," he said quietly. He would regret that.

However, I nodded acquiescently and began my account.

"I'm her second husband, though she's only twenty-six. Well, technically she's twenty-eight, but she takes age very well."

He would need this information – however cryptic – to successfully piece together the logic of his own indictment. I continued my account.

"Esme was married originally at the age of twenty-two, and was one of the last of her friends to wed. She had resisted for quite some time, trying to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. But eventually, at her parents' urging, she gave in and accepted the proposal of an upstanding man in the community."

Charles nodded slowly, looking increasingly ill.

"I'm sad to say that her marriage was not a happy one. She lived in fear of the man she called her husband, as he was prone to violence at the least provocation. Though he left for two years to fight in the Great War, his life was spared, and he returned home."

Charles opened his mouth as though he was going to try to say something, but he couldn't find the courage. Hardly thinking, I advanced on him slowly as I continued.

"It didn't end there. Things were soon as bad as before, if not worse – and as a coup de grâce, if you will, Esme soon became pregnant with this ungrateful man's child."

Evenson had been following along so far, albeit in terror. However, as the shock that instantly registered on his face at those words could attest, this was a part of the story with which he was unfamiliar. The possibility that that could be the case had not occurred to me.

"Pregnant?"

"Yes," I hissed, undaunted. "Unable to imagine raising a child in a hell like hers, she ran away."

"What happened to Esme and the child?" Evenson whispered, his voice cracking. I now had my hands rested on the arms of his chair, our faces inches apart. I couldn't imagine hating anybody in the entire world and the eternity I had left to spend there as much as I hated that man in that moment.

"Since when have you cared about the fate of your family, Charles Evenson?" I demanded icily. Charles shrunk back from my freezing breath, but his horror-filled eyes never left my own soon-to-be-red ones.

"You're going to kill me right here, aren't you?" he asked dully.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

My words fell like a pall between us despite our close proximity. The terror and uncertainty in his eyes was like a drug to me. We both knew that I had planned on killing him, but I was beginning to realize something new.

I would much rather keep him like this forever.

A shrunken, silent man – at last the prey. His dark days as a predator had ended. The anticipation of being ripped limb from limb by a man strong enough to half-crush his hand by mere touch was perhaps even worse than the real thing. His breath was bated.

And then the unimaginable happened.

I silently stood up and backed away from him, turning to face the opposite wall.

All I heard was silence; he still didn't dare to move or speak.

"Get the hell away from me, Charles Evenson," I whispered.

"…what?"

"I said get the hell away!" I shouted, my shaking voice reaching a terrifying level. "Before I change my mind!"

What was I doing?

I was supposed to be tearing this monster apart. I had intended him to become nothing more than a day's worth of strength in my centuries-old veins, a repast to get me through to my next hunt. And I was letting him walk away unscathed.

How could that be?

After three hundred years of fighting tooth and nail to deny myself the gratification of human blood, how could it suddenly be so difficult to give in? And to a man so despicable, so worthy of such a fate? It should have been easy; it should have been a luxury!

I could hear him get to his feet shakily and slowly, but it was hardly a moment before he suddenly sped up and ran as fast as he could for the door. I heard the knob rattle under his trembling fingers and the rain pouring on the pavement as he raced outside, stumbling over the threshold of the door.

This was my last chance; he could be mine yet…

No.

I'd had my revenge.

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One chapter left – let me know what you think so far! :)


	3. Chapter 3

Okay - the final installment! Thanks so much for reading, you guys. :) I didn't expect a big response to this one – it was a great surprise, and a fun way to start off my fanfiction-ing for 2009. So I thought I'd share this story's playlist, just for the heck of it… there were so many songs that were totally perfect:

Topping the list is Better Man, by Pearl Jam (of course). Then there's Headfirst Slide into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet, by Fall Out Boy, and Transylvania, by McFly. And finally, of course, what would a story like this be without Face Down, by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus?

I don't own any of those either, by the way. Lol. My next fic is going to be a Rosalie-centric story entitled 'Long Distance.' If you're interested in reading it, just author-alert me. :)

And thanks again. Enjoy.

* * *

The first week I spent back home following my excursion to Columbus was a tense one. Probably only for me; Esme and the others didn't hint that they had noticed any difference. Obviously Edward would have figured some things out, but he had amazingly stayed out of the situation. He would have been able to figure out the result of my actions, anyway, so it was a moot point.

Nevertheless, every silence that fell over the house was, in my mind, a moment that begged for the truth to be told, my dark secret to be released into the light.

Finally, on Friday night, after Edward went on a hunting trip and left Esme and me reading downstairs, I gave into the temptation of honesty.

"I have a confession to make."

The words were out before I could rethink them. She looked up at me, her flawless features consumed by an expression of confusion.

"Yes?"

I took a deep breath, though I knew that I hardly needed it.

"I wasn't truthful about my trip last week. I went to Columbus. Your old home, actually."

When I began, I hadn't intended for the whole truth to flood out so quickly. However, I feared that if I simply confessed to having lied, she would automatically assume I had seen another woman. After all, what other reason would a husband have for lying to his wife about his whereabouts? Since I obviously couldn't abide with her believing that for a moment, I went ahead and told the bulk of the story in that single statement.

However, when I looked up after saying what I had, her face was a mask of horror that hurt me almost as badly as if she had believed me to be guilty of infidelity.

"What happened?"

The question was a soft one. I imagine that part of her trusted that I hadn't harmed Evenson – and she clearly wanted to believe that part – but there was a certain hesitance in her belief. I definitely deserved that, regardless of how it hurt me. After all, I had intended to commit murder, and in fact came very close to doing so.

"I didn't kill him, if that's what you mean," I finally replied. "We did meet, though."

"Carlisle…"

It was rare that Esme called me by my first name. I bit my lip.

"I'm sorry, love. I shouldn't have done it. But when I learned what had happened, it was like another part of me came to life. A part I've repressed all my life. I wanted to… hurt him. Make him pay."

Esme nodded, but her expression was one of anguish.

"But that's not you!" she whispered hoarsely. "You're so compassionate, so loving. You couldn't hurt anybody if you wanted to!"

I shook my head.

"You shouldn't give me so much credit," I said softly, struggling to find the words to explain a personality phenomenon that still confused me. "The only terms in which I can think to explain it would be those of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde type character. It was like when I heard what he had done to you, I became a different person. Somebody capable of terrible atrocities."

"Not you," Esme repeated. "You couldn't have. Carlisle, tell me he's alright!"

Esme's agony was clear – and it was on behalf of a man who had hurt her so badly. When I realized this, I began to feel the old anger flooding back in; the anger that had coursed through me when I sat in Evenson's parlor.

"He's fine, Esme!" I said, my voice shaking. I could tell that it had risen in volume, but at least I wasn't yelling, like I wanted to. "He's perfectly fine! But he shouldn't be! He acts like nothing happened, he pretends to live there as an honest, upstanding man! And he should be killed, for what he's done!"

I collapsed back into the sofa, unable to handle all the anger and stress. Burying my face in my hands, I shook my head slowly.

"I came so close," I whispered. "I almost did it. And the worst part is, I don't know what I regret. Sometimes I feel guilty for leaving without killing him, and sometimes I feel guilty for going to find him at all. I don't know what I feel."

I sat there for a moment or two, silent and alone in my despair. Though my eyes were shut, I sensed the lights go off in the room, and I felt a slender arm around my shoulders. About that time, a cool finger lifted my chin back up.

"No one has ever fought for me before," Esme said, her eyes deep and clear in the darkness. "By doing what you did, you've proven two things to me."

I waited silently and intently for her account of the lessons my horrific actions possibly could have taught. She didn't seem angry, but I didn't know how else she could feel after hearing my confession.

"You've proven to me that I'm someone worth fighting for," she explained. "There was a time I never could have believed that. And you also confirmed to me how wonderful of a man that you are. You have so much power and strength, and you detested him that much, but you still remembered who you are."

I nodded slowly, the truth of her words beginning to sink in. But the ones that kept echoing back to me, over and over, were probably not the ones she would have intended:

'You've proven to e that I'm someone worth fighting for… there was a time I never could have believed that.'

"Esme, you're all I'd ever want to fight for," I said, scorning the emptiness that came from the inability to express emotion through tears. "I love you so much."

"I've waited all my life for those words," she replied, her look of sad thoughtfulness becoming a radiant smile. Kissing her once, deeply, I allowed her to pull me back so that my head rested in her lap. She stroked my hair gently.

"You're truly one of a kind, my love," she said, kissing me again on the forehead. "Never forget that."

* * *

So that, I suppose, is my story.

I am a stronger man for what happened, and possibly even stronger for what did not happen. I understand a little bit more deeply the wonderful love of which my wife is capable, though I think I could go a hundred lifetimes without seeing that manifested to its fullest.

I am not here to say that I am now perfect, or anything resembling it. That would be a terrible lie. Even the regret that I hate so much has never entirely dissipated. I must confess that there are times when I lament my act of mercy more than others. However, the more I've thought about it over the years, the more convinced I've become that I did serve some kind of justice to Charles Evenson.

I could have easily given him death in that moment, nose-to-nose in his parlor. However, that wasn't the fate his actions merited, and I'd known it even then.

Evenson deserved fear. Nothing more, nothing less. Fear so palpable that it made him sick. The kind of fear that would haunt him for the rest of his days, leaving him to awaken alone, night after night, trembling in terror of someone with chilling eyes and an ice-cold grasp.

Fear that he had given my Esme every day.

If true justice had taken place, Esme herself would have been the one to instill this fear. However, I knew that she wouldn't do it. She is an angel, and though I love her all the more for that, I still often wish that she could feel a bit more righteous anger on her own behalf. It would ease my mind, as I often fear that she thinks herself somehow responsible for the tragedy that was her past life.

Rosalie took revenge into her own hands, and as I saw it, she was wronged no more grossly than Esme had been. However, Rosalie and Esme are different kinds of women. I couldn't expect Esme to commit murder, and I wouldn't feel the same way about her if she were the kind of person I could expect that from.

I was afraid for a short time that murder was something I could expect from myself. But since, I have come to a realization.

I suppose, in retrospect, that there is still humanity within me.

Even after three centuries without a heartbeat, I am certain that the man Carlisle Cullen lives on. He has not succumbed entirely to a freezing body and an endless night. No entirely inhuman being could feel things as deeply as I feel them.

I felt hatred for Charles, and three hundred years of wisdom couldn't keep me from acting on it. I know logically and believe morally that revenge is wrong and only serves to further the corruption that prompted it, but I couldn't think about what had been done to my Esme, my beloved, and not strive to avenge her. No amount of knowledge or conviction could have made the loathing that served as my motivation any less potent.

In the same way, however, I know that I am somehow still alive because of the way I can love Esme. No dead man could feel the passion and joy that she gives me every hour we spend together. Though my heart doesn't race at her touch, I am drawn to her in a way that I cannot put into words. She is the sunshine of each day and the calm, reassuring presence of an eternal night.

I admit that I am no human. I can't give Esme the children she wants so badly or grow old at her side. When I brought her into my world, I brought her into a broken place of constant moving and thousands of lies. I don't eat human food or drink human drink, and I will never fall asleep with my hand in hers.

Still, I maintain that I am far more human than Charles Evenson ever was or ever will be.


End file.
